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Creative Writing, General

Writing

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Career Definition for a Poet

A poet writes poetry that is rhymed or free verse. Poets are hired to interpret and represent a client's creative needs into written prose. Often working for publishing companies and advertising agencies, poets write poetry books, songs, advertising jingles and verses for greeting cards.

Required Education

Successful poets use their creativity and advanced education to write poetry that is marketable. There are many 2-year, junior colleges and 4-year colleges and universities that offer liberal arts programs and degrees for writers who want to become poets. English literature, composition, creative writing and poetic structure classes are usually included in a liberal arts degree curriculum.

Skills Required

Poets need an excellent understanding of language, poetic voice, style and structure. They should have a diverse writing portfolio and good presentation skills to gain clients. Writers in general often work on strict deadlines, so the ability to be creative under pressure is helpful.

Career and Economic Outlook

The Library of Congress reports that the U.S. Poet Laureate, the official promoter of poetry in the United States appointed by the Library of Congress, was given a stipend of $35,000 in 2016. Typically, however, poets are self-employed doing freelance writing projects for book and magazine publishers. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) expected jobs for authors and writers to grow by only 2% from 2014-2024, which is slower than average. However, the popularity of venues for spoken word poetry and online poetry blogs has resulted in new revenue resources for poets. The BLS also reported an annual median salary of $60,250 for all writers and authors.

Alternate Career Options

If poetry isn't your thing, you might consider these other careers in writing:

Editor

Editors review and revise content before publication; they normally have a bachelor's degree in journalism, English or communications, in addition to media experience. The BLS reported an annual median salary of $56,010 in 2015 and predicted a 5% job decline for editors from 2014-2024.

Technical Writer

With a bachelor's degree and experience with technical subjects, like engineering or computer science, technical writers prepare instruction manuals and other supporting materials that pertain to technical information, to be given to manufacturers and customers. A faster than average employment growth of 10% was projected by the BLS for technical writers, during the 2014-2024 decade. In 2015, they earned a median wage of $70,240 per year, according to the BLS.